


The Lighthouse

by sandwichtree



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Horror, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-01 06:33:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2763209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandwichtree/pseuds/sandwichtree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The cruise ship sinks on Eren's 18th birthday. The lighthouse doesn't so much as flicker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Neither Fish Nor Fowl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY I'M JUST GOING TO MAKE SOME WARNINGS: in this story there will be occasional explicit descriptions of violence/murder/dead bodies, as is par for the course in horror fiction, i suppose, but i tend to find a way to put grotesque violence in even my fluffiest fiction. it's a personal problem. there will also be ableist bullshit coming from jean. this does not reflect my personal views. jean is a dillweed!!!

 

When they were fifteen, Eren dared Jean to spend the night in the old, haunted lighthouse up the hill. It was a cool night in early June with clean air and fireflies. Their flashlights cut circular cross sections from the landscape, bouncing higher with each step, up and up the rocky incline.

Results: mixed, inconclusive

 

\-----

 

Almost three years later, during spring semester of their junior year of high school, a cruise ship sinks just off the coast of Rosewood.

Only one girl survives.

Jean spent the night before the accident staring moodily out the living room window at the ship’s tiny lights in the blue distance. His sour mood and vile intentions aimed next door at Eren’s birthday party later make him think that he perhaps caused the ship to sink himself. Jean’s the kind of kid to occasionally wonder if he’s God, not least of all when something terrible happens. When he tells his mom, she laughs and sends him out to the curb with a bag of garbage, the same as every other Saturday morning.

The mysterious sinking ship is a Whole Thing. It’s a mystery. No flares. No communication. No witnesses. No indication of anything at all, except that on the night of Eren Jaeger’s eighteenth birthday, it was floating atop the ocean, and the next morning it’s at the bottom.

 

  
\------

  
  
  
Jean spends all Sunday glaring through the window slats at Eren's bedroom window. After his birthday party, Eren is no doubt sleeping off a hangover like a bum.  
  
Every year Jean's own birthday requires careful consideration. As it occurs only a week after Eren's, Jean is always sure to make his birthday celebration bigger, better, and all around less creepy and obsessive than he can assume Eren's was. This year will naturally be more of the same, not that Eren will ever know, considering he is not invited to Jean's birthday, and that he would not come even if he _were._  
  
Jean's only hope is to have a party loud enough that the noise shakes the next door Jaeger's house on its foundation.  
  
Shouldn't be a problem. His mom is already playing the news about the cruise ship loud enough to deafen orbiting astronauts.

 

\-----

 

“I saw it sink, you know,” Jean says on Monday, which is plausible considering his house overlooks the bay. “It was a tentacled creature from below. Huge green fucker put the boat under in one pull.”

Marco gives him a softly tolerant look and buckles his helmet, which Jean always finds mildly embarrassing. “Jean, don’t take this the wrong way,” Marco says, “but I think you might be the character in the horror movie who gets killed first.

Jean’s grin twists into a grimace as he climbs onto his bike. “Is there a right way to take that?"

They begin their descent down the hill into town toward school, just like they do every day, slowly and then with gathering speed, a constant crescendo to an ultimately boring, samey existence.  
  
Rosewood, Maine is not a place anyone has heard of since the fall of its boot-legging industry in the 1930's. The appearance of the town takes its cues from this timeline as well, making it one of those quaint brick-and-brownstone towns that bankrupted at exactly the right point in history for day tourists to lament modern architecture.  
  
In the spring, the Atlantic blows icy spray up against the craggy rise of rocks the town was built upon, making the ride to school a refreshing one, to say the least.  
  
The road along the coastline leads all the way down from the lighthouse into the downtown area where Rosewood High School is located.

Marco continues, “You know, the funny one who pretends to be horribly murdered to impress a girl and then _actually_ gets horribly murdered five minutes later as his friends laugh about his howls of pain…”

“No, I know which _one!”_ Jean shouts. “What the hell!”

Marco laughs against the salty wind.

They pass Eren and Mikasa on Lyndale Street at 7:47AM, just like they do every morning.

Jean smiles at Mikasa and hopes she doesn’t think it’s lame that he rides his bike to school every morning with a guy who still insists on wearing his helmet all the way down the hill because his dad made it a rule back in first grade.

Mikasa _skateboards_ to school and makes _her_ helmet seem like a fashion statement. It’s bowling ball matte black with a red star sticker on the back, and she always wears it undone with the buckles hanging down and brushing the shoulders of her leather jacket. Stylish, sure, but also intelligent.

Not like death-seeking Eren Jaeger, who boards down the hill from the steepest parts in nothing but a t-shirt, jeans and one disgustingly tattered Power Rangers backpack.

To use Marco’s horror flick scenario, if Jean’s the asshole who cried ghost, then Eren’s the stupid bastard who suggested they read the cursed latin Bible in the first place.

Jean makes a face in spite of himself.

Eren returns the rude look along with a succinct hand gesture.

He’s not quite within earshot, but Jean doesn’t have to be able to hear the word to recognize it on Eren’s lips.

“Traitor,” like always.

He’ll get over it eventually. Jean has.

 

\------

 

The bodies start washing up on the beach the following afternoon.  
  
Even from behind the stark yellow POLICE LINE (DO NOT CROSS), the bloated corpses are clearly visible. There have to be at least a hundred of them. Depending on race, they come in shades from soap white to brownish purple, skin gelatinous and salt encrusted, pinched by previously well-fitting clothes.  
  
The damp brown sand is churned up in an endless mountain range by five dozen pairs of curious feet, despite rescue workers and police officers encouraging spectators to return home.

Dazz, who is a total dickcheese, takes pictures on his phone until Jean punches him in the arm.

Sasha holds Connie’s wrist in one hand, softly, and a coffee in the other, taking an occasional sip as she says, “You know the girl who survived? My dad is one of her nurses. Apparently she’s all alone at the hospital. All the family she had was on the boat.”

“I’m gonna be sick,” mutters Connie, staring at the ground.

Sasha puts her arm around him. She’s more serious than Jean’s seen her since Eren’s stint in the hospital a while back. Her eyebrows gather down over her nose as she squeezes Connie aggressively.

Connie smiles in response.

“Maybe someone should visit her,” suggests Marco.

“‘Visit her,’ says the saint,” Jean mutters, glancing back at one of the smaller bodies being carted away by paramedics. Some poor kid. Jesus. “What, Marco, did you hear something about this chick being hot?”

“You can be such an asshole,” Marco sighs.

Jean is pretty sure he makes Eren, Armin and, most importantly, Mikasa, arrive by using his God Mind. Mikasa has her skateboard helmet tucked under her arm, allowing her extremely cool hair to ripple in the wind.

Jean silently thanks himself. Amen, he thinks.

Armin’s shrill voice catches his ear, a little out of breath after jogging to keep up with Eren and Mikasa. “Eren, do you really think it’s--”

“Of course it is,” Eren grinds out, like he’s peeved Armin would bother to ask. “What else would it be?”

“I don’t like it, Eren,” says Mikasa.

The terse looks they exchange call war veterans to mind.

“I mean, statistically speaking…” Armin says, pulling out his smartphone and tapping out a few strokes, “the chances are slim that something on this large a scale could be paranormal, but it would be pretty incredible, don’t you think?” His blue eyes light with eerie possibility.

Eren gains a smiley edge to his regular look of compulsive determination. “It’s her,” he states. “She’s back. And this time we're gonna stop her. I'm sure of it.”

Behind them, there’s a sick _schlop_ as a body misloaded on its stretcher hits the wet sand.

Jean gets ten types of deja vu at once.

“Have a little respect, would you?!” he blurts.

Eren reels around like a raging bull. “What the hell did you just say, _Jean?”_

He says Jean’s name the same way he usually says ‘traitor,’ with his teeth bared and his soul self-righteously straining toward war hero heaven. It’s a little dramatic that Eren puts it in terms of traitors and villains. Jean thinks he’s too young to be a traitor. You can’t call somebody a traitor until they’re at least 25.

“You heard me!” Jean shouts in return, shoving his coffee in Marco’s general direction, the better to use his hands for punching Eren Jaeger’s arrogant face. “Actual, _real life_ people are dead here! You can’t put your brain-addled fantasy on hold for one goddamn day?”

It gets quiet in their pocket of the crowd.

Only Mikasa moves, putting a firm hand on Eren’s shoulder. Whether it’s in restraint or solidarity isn’t really clear, but it just serves to piss Jean off even more.

On some level, he can sense that he’s acting a bit traitor-y but still can’t quite hold it in. “Not to mention,” he mentions, “it’s not enough for you to be batshit by yourself, but you’re dragging your incredibly decent friends into it, too!”

Eren throws Mikasa’s hand off of him and takes such a huge, shaking breath that Jean wonders if he’s about to literally breathe fire and fry off Jean's skin.

But the moment before he can speak, Armin steps in front of him.

“At the risk of making myself seem less than ‘incredibly decent,’” Armin says with a smile, “something is wrong with this picture. In my opinion, what’s truly respectful is to get to the bottom of what caused these people to die. Don’t you agree?”

“Yeah, so back off, asshole!” Eren shouts, still trying to escape Mikasa’s placating hands.

Armin doesn’t seem to hear Eren’s continuing tirade. Instead, he goes on: “Your house overlooks the bay, right, Jean? Do you ever remember seeing cruise ships this early in spring before?”

That, despite everything, gives Jean pause.

“No, right?” says Armin.

Sasha answers for him, clutching Connie tighter than ever. “That’s right!” she squeaks. “We hardly ever even get cruises this far north during the summer!” Her face twists in fear. “I hate you, Armin. Sorry for saying that. But I do. I don’t, but I really do. You always say the worst smart stuff...”

Connie nods hastily. “Armin, don’t talk anymore until we leave, okay? Let's bounce, Sasha.”

Before they have a chance to bounce properly, however, Armin’s face goes pale.

“Look,” he says, pointing over Jean’s shoulder.

Jean turns to look--they all do--and there in the sand lies the body that fell from its stretcher. The man’s shirt is rucked up and ripped, limbs having flopped in all kinds of sideways directions. He’s ass up with his white, rubbery back exposed.

The rescue workers rush to get him back on the stretcher before too much dignity is lost, but it’s too late for Jean, for poor Connie and Sasha, for shitty-and-still-deteriorating Eren, all of whom see the red lacerations across the corpse’s back and shoulders.

A pair of wings, red and sticky, have been painstakingly carved into his flesh in hundreds of short, deep strokes. The bloated skin around the lesions reduces what must have been ragged wounds into puffy red lines.

Jean stops cold, hit by a dead weight like the ground under his feet has given way. This isn't, after all, the first time he's seen wings like that.

There’s more. Farther up the beach, Jean can see the body of a slight woman, the back of her white sweater stained red in the same hazy shape. Closer, another man, bloody inverted feathers peeking past the sleeve of his tank top. Hints of this atrocity everywhere.

The soft pulse of the constantly advancing surf grows louder until it’s just radio static, soundless as slipping down under the icy water.

Jean turns to look at Eren in spite of himself, feeling his body move in slow motion, adrift in the quicksand, and finds Eren already staring back at him. He expects some kind of glare, a triumphant smirk perhaps, but Eren doesn't look like that at all.

Those bright eyes are widened just slightly, focused on Jean like a child watching his goldfish do a final swirl in the toilet bowl. The wind picks up his hair, ruffles at the edges of his t-shirt. His mouth softly makes a word: "Jean.”

"Why are you even _here?"_

Eren gets very still and blinks several times.

Jean sneers wretchedly. "Aren't you scared of the ocean or some compulsive bullshit?"

Before he has a chance to shove his foot further into his mouth, he feels the impact of a fist against his face. He goes down in the wet sand, still struggling to breathe.

Violence, Jean can work with. Violence and Jean and Eren Jaeger all go hand and hand. Arm and arm down the Yellow Brick Road. He'll kick Eren's legs out from under him, pin him down in the dirt. Off to see the Wizard. It will go perfectly. But when he looks up, it's Mikasa standing over him.

Armin sighs so deeply it is likely heard in the next state over, and just like that, the tension is broken.

Marco starts laughing, followed by Connie, who says, "Oh my god! Sick!"

And, well, Jean didn’t pencil ‘being skinned alive by Mikasa Ackerman' into his schedule, so he just rubs his jaw in irritation.

"Where the hell did that come from..." he mutters.

"Sorry," Mikasa says, blank-faced.

"Arminnnn. You couldn't let us leave before you pointed out the bloody etch-a-sketch guy?” Sasha complains, kicking sand in Armin’s direction. “I’m not going to sleep for the rest of my life. I hope you’re happy.”

Armin shrugs helplessly as Connie attempts to tickle his midsection in retribution.  
  
Mikasa inspects her knuckles.

Slowly, pitifully, with very little dignity, Jean pulls himself to his feet, brushing the sand from his jeans.

“You’re okay, though, right?” Marco asks.

“I’m _fine,”_ Jean says, avoiding Eren’s still staring eyes. “Can we leave?”

“Sure thing,” says Marco. “It could have gone worse, you know.

Jean pulls up the hood of his sweatshirt to hide his fresh bruise. “Oh my god. Save it.”

Marco pats Jean’s upper back thoughtfully, just where the wings were carved into the corpses. “At least neither of you cried this time,” he says.

 

\------

 

After he parts ways with Marco at the top of the ridge, Jean catches sight of his mom among the Rosewood Police officers investigating the scene. Under the clouds, her skin flashes red and blue with the twirling patrol lights.

Jean’s never been more relieved to see her. He even brings himself to wave instead of avoiding eye contact like he usually does when peers are present. That's probably how she knows something's up.

She leans sideways to say something to her partner, Officer Larson, and then hurries over to her son. “Jean, kid, what’s wrong?” she asks as she reaches up to push back his hood. She touches his face where Mikasa punched it. “What the he--What happened to you?”

“Don't ask,” Jean mutters.

His mom presses her mouth into a line as she inspects him for further damage, jerking his head from side to side. “Listen to me. I want you to tell me if you need help.”

“Right.”

“Jean Kirschtein.”

“Ma.”

“You’re my son, Jean.”

“ _Ma_.”

“My only son.”

“Stop. I’ll tell you if I need my mommy to rescue me from the bullies, alright?”

She pulls him down to look in his eyes. She’s really striking, Jean’s mom, with sharp brown eyes and high cheekbones. “I’m sorry today sucks,” she says sincerely. “But stay away from the beach for a while. Some psychopath has been down there cutting up the bodies.”

Jean frowns as she lets him go. “What, they were carved _after_ they washed up?”

“It’s not really clear,” she says with a sigh. “Everything goes ass backwards and elbows sideways when the deceased have been submerged in saltwater. It’s a shitshow to even reason out time of death.” She takes a slow breath, looking out over the rescue boats, the bodies littering the sand, the gray sea stretching out for miles and miles. Then, she realizes what she said, and follows it up with, “I mean, don’t swear, okay? Only cops are allowed to swear. That’s the new law that just passed right now. I have to enforce it. Because that is my job.”

Jean rolls his eyes and changes the subject. “Spaghetti tonight.”

His mom grins and kisses him firmly on the cheek. “You’re so good to me. Be safe, kid.”

“You too, Ma.”

And maybe it’s because he knows she’s got another afternoon shift and doesn’t want to be alone, or because all these things are starting to make some kind of morbid literary sense in his head, or just because he needs to shine up his recent karma score in case he dies suddenly, but he adds, “By the way, tomorrow I’m going with Marco to visit the girl who survived.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LIES DOWN. LIES ALL THE WAY DOWN INTO HELL.
> 
> next chapter in a couple weeks.


	2. Winging It

 

 

Rosewood General Hospital sits in the front center of downtown, a conglomeration of tall, artfully constructed red brick buildings between stone walkways and potted plants.

Jean arrives at 3:16PM and stares at the _1903 R_ carved into the plating to the right of the main entrance. He stares for an entire minute, debating his return home to take a nice long cat nap. In the end, it’s his contemplation of an uphill bike ride that sours the deal. Might as well make an appearance.

_She’s really nice,_ Marco texts. _Nice enough to put up with your terrible first impressions._

Jean punches, _YOU’RE A MENACE,_ at his touchscreen.

_No offense. I’m glad you’re coming. You’re a good person, Jean!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D :D,_ adds Marco.

“Incredible,” Jean mutters as he enters the hospital.

Right away, things go sour.

No, it doesn’t even last a minute.

Jean’s foray into charity work is nearly over before it begins, because Eren Jaeger has been detained in the lobby by a police officer.

There he is, that tool, handcuffed to the chair.

Every day, Jean becomes more positive that he is, in fact, The Almighty God. Jeansus Christein incarnate.

Eren looks up with huge eyes. On the coffee table before him is his ripped third grade Power Rangers backpack, four tape recorders, one small camcorder, two handheld gauges of some kind, and a hunting knife.

Jean can see it happening crystal clear:

As Eren crossed the threshold of the Rosewood General Hospital to harass the only survivor of a terrible accident, the duct tape patching together the bottom of said shitty backpack must have given way and liberated his terrifying arsenal all across the white marble tiles. Nurses shouted. Orderlies tackled. A funky pervert in the hospital with a knife. Eren Jaeger, child of Jean’s nightmares. There he is. There he fucking well is.

As Jean’s godly whim would have it, the officer halfway through booking Eren is Officer Larson, his mom’s partner. Larson reclines on the chair next to Eren with his feet up on the coffee table, obviously not concerned about Eren being a real threat.

It’s true, anyway. For someone so consistently obstinate, Eren’s always been strangely enamored by authority figures.

He just sits there, one hand cuffed to the chair, one hand balled on his thigh. His desperate gaze burns into the side of Jean’s face. His prayers reach Jean’s wretched, blackened heart.

“Officer Larson?” says Jean.

 

\------

 

By 3:40, Eren’s off the hook. Larson still owed Jean a favor from the time Jean pretended to be his kid in front of a cute waitress as a sixth grader.

They ride the elevator together, which is an incredibly surreal experience, simultaneously familiar and impossible, not to mention awkward in the wake of their almost-fight at the beach, of which Jean still feels irrationally cheated.

“That cop took my knife,” says Eren as the elevator doors slide shut behind them.

“Are you really going to complain that the police officer I rescued you from confiscated your serial murderer weapon?” Jean asks.

“I needed it! For self defense, obviously!”

“Can you hear yourself speaking or is it just an obnoxious horror movie script all the time?”

Eren glares at the elevator wall. “It was my best knife.”

“I can’t believe the words that come out of you,” Jean replies in disbelief. “Were you planning on _torturing_ information out of the trauma victim? That _is_ why you’re here, right? To tell ghost stories and cause general chaos?”

Eren transfers his glare directly into Jean’s face. “Is there a way to get my knife back or not? You would know. Your mom’s a cop.”

“Are you honestly asking me for a favor--”

“Never mind,” Eren mutters.

“No, no, tell me more. What other trifles can I provide you with? Any interest in a diamond necklace? A small country?”

Eren tugs at his stupid old backpack irritably. “Stop talking to me.”

Jean scoffs as they reach their floor. “Gladly.”

Marco meets them at the door to the hospital room.

“Jean!” he calls. Then he spots Jean’s companion and nearly goes cross-eyed in confusion. “And...Eren? Hello?”

Jean has never been more thankful for his best friend’s ability to insert so many derogatory implications into a seemingly polite statement. He chooses not to accept the possibility that any of said implications are directed toward him.

“Hey, Marco!” says Eren. His face totally changes when he smiles. He practically goes through a sparkly Sailor Moon transformation. “I didn’t know you were coming!” Like it’s such a relief.

Marco grins.

They bump fists.

Jean hates Marco, and their friendship is over.

“You’re…” Marco says hesitantly, looking between them. “You two came together?”

Unwilling to explain this nauseating situation, Jean says, “We met in the lobby. Eren’s here on business.”

“Right,” says Marco. “Well, come on in. Sasha and Connie are already here. You’re sort of late. I’m sorry if I told you the wrong time, Jean, but we were supposed to meet at three.” Marco knows full well that he did not tell Jean the wrong time.

“Not in the mood,” mutters Jean, pushing past him into the hospital room.

His earlier joke about the girl who survived being hot suddenly seems quaint in comparison to how beautiful the girl actually is. More like breathtaking.

She’s sitting up in her white bed gown, her leg in a cast propped at the end of the bed, while Connie and Sasha all but worship her.

“She’s incredible!” says Connie.

“She’s unbelievable!” says Sasha. “We opened the window and a bird landed on the windowsill! I think she’s probably God.”

“Hey,” says Jean.

Marco sighs. “These two are smitten,” he comments, scratching his head. “They already said they’re going to become her sisterwives.”

“Is there anything we can get for you while you entertain these dunderheads?” asks Connie.

“Hey!” says Jean.

The girl who survived the sinking ship laughs. Her voice is a little flute. “You two are so kind,” she says inaccurately. “I suppose I wouldn’t mind a bite of something to eat.” She smiles bashfully, accentuating her sparkling eyes and delicately round cheeks.

“Consider it done! A feast fit for my new wife!” declares Sasha, pulling Connie out the door.

Marco chuckles and points after them. “Well if you’re fine here--” Jean is not fine. He communicates this by horrifically widening his eyes. “--I think I’ll go with them.” Marco _runs._ He actually _runs_ from the horrible situation that is about to occur in this hospital room.

The girl who survived tilts her head at Jean and Eren. “I’m Krista. Marco said you’re a friend…?”

Jean hurries to speak before Eren can ruin this girl’s entire day. “Guilty as charged,” he says, putting incredible effort into a smile in spite of Eren’s elbow digging into his ribs. “I’m Jean, and this--” He manages to gesture and shunt Eren’s offending elbow away simultaneously. “--is Eren. He’s mute. Doesn’t talk at all. But he’s very sorry for your loss.”

“Oh,” says Krista, “Thank--”

Eren shoves Jean into the small linen pantry near the door to the hallway. “You’re such a fuckhead--”

“God--!” Jean gasps, clawing his way back into the room. “ _Damn it--_ ”

Krista doesn’t seem to be listening very closely to the rowdy exchange, although her smile fades somewhat. “What did you say your name was again?” she asks, peering at Eren.

“Eren Jaeger!” he exclaims, snapping to attention like a soldier in basic.

Krista smiles sweetly. She’s much too good for the likes of the foolish bunch with whom she’s been burdened. “It’s nice to meet you, Eren.”

“I _am_ sorry about what happened,” Eren says, eyes alight with sincerity underneath a neatly furrowed brow. “I understand what it’s like to lose people you love. I was hoping I could ask you a few questions. To make sure more people don’t lose their families.”

“I appreciate it,” Krista replies in her tiny voice. “But I already told the police everything I know.”

“Well, me and the police aren’t looking for the same kind of suspect.”

Jean covers his face in his hands. “I apologize for him…”

Eren opens up his terrible ratty backpack and pulls out a tape recorder. “Please,” he says. “It won’t take long.”

Krista looks at him for a minute, her light eyebrows drawn together. Her smile from moments ago has completely disappeared in the face of an interview about the horrific incident. She pulls her white robe closer around her.

Eren presses the record button on his audio recorder and says, “I think you know what you saw. Krista.”

“Jesus,” Jean mutters, seriously considering defenestrating himself to be done with this.

Krista looks over at the numbers on her IV drip. Unbelievably, she says, “Alright.”

Eren nods grimly and pulls up one of the visitor chairs. “State your name and age, please.”

“My name is Krista Lenz, and I’m seventeen years old,” Krista replies. “I have nine more months until adulthood.” Part of her smile returns, though it’s haunted now, so to speak.

Eren pulls out an honest-to-God notepad. “Were you on the boat when it sank?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Why?”

“I was on a family vacation,” Krista says with a twisted mouth. “It was the first time the whole family had gotten together in decades, and we were all on one cruise ship. It was like a dream.”

“Do you know why the ship sank?”

“I think I know as much as anyone. I must have gotten hit in the head or something. One minute I was out on the deck, admiring Santorini. And then before I knew it I woke up freezing on the beach in Maine.”

“Santorini?” Jean blurts. “As in Greece? The ship came from _Greece?_ What, by _accident?”_

“I know it sounds crazy…” Krista says. She shakes her head, smiling and wringing her small hands simultaneously. “I can’t imagine how we got so far off course.”

“But it must have taken a week to get here,” Jean says, briefly meeting Eren’s eyes in confusion. “What’s the last day you remember being on the cruise?”

“March 22nd, I think.”

“Eight days,” Eren whispers. “Eight days before the ship was seen again.”

Krista smiles helplessly. “Eight days I don’t even remember. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.”

Eren leans forward in earnest. _“Did_ you get hit on the head?”

There’s that famous Jaeger bedside manner.

“No, I didn’t, actually.” Krista laughs. “They checked me pretty thoroughly. I’m hardly injured at all aside from my broken leg. Everyone keeps calling it a miracle…”

“But it wasn’t a miracle,” says Eren.

Krista cocks her head like a crow curious over roadkill.

“There was something else on that boat, right Krista?”

She stares with enormous quivering eyes and whispers, “It was a dream.”

“You have to tell me,” says Eren. “Please.” The sincerity on that face would make a nun guilty.

“You don’t have to tell him anything,” Jean reminds her.

Krista shakes her head. “There was a blond girl with her hair tied up. No one seemed to know who she was. She always stood out on the front deck, and didn’t even do anything strange in particular, but I just _knew..._ I have this feeling that I spoke to her, but I can’t remember what--”

Eren stands up, sending his chair reeling back with a screech. “Was she wearing a gold pin?”

Jean looks away, out the hospital window toward the shoreline. The ocean is green and gray like sugared absinthe. The creepy Greek cruise drifter had to be a blond lady...

“I’m not sure…Sorry, do you know her?”

“Can you remember what she said to you? Even one word might help!”

Krista goes silent for a moment, and then she says, “‘Fly.’”

Jean turns to look with a sinking stomach.

“‘Fly,’” Eren breathes, a grin blooming in his mouth. “What was your dream?”

“That I was flying,” Krista says wonderingly. “It’s hard to explain. I hope that girl made it to heaven with the others. Maybe she was a guardian angel.”

Despite everything, that makes Jean feel a little hopeful. “Hell of a time to be thinking about others,” he says.

Krista folds her hands and her eyes go all shimmery. She really is breathtakingly gorgeous. “I only wish I could have done more. My family didn’t deserve such a meaningless death.”

“Wow,” says Jean.

“I suppose the only thing I can take away from this experience is to live my life without regrets from now on.”

Jean only says, “Are you single?” because he is a total moron.

The look Eren gives him could wilt a garden.

Krista just laughs. “I have a girlfriend, actually.”

“That question is on the record,” Eren comments, clicking the stop button on his voice recorder.

Jean rolls his eyes. “Anyone would ask. I’m not ashamed.”

“You _should_ be ashamed, traitor,” mutters Eren, packing away his recorder and shoving the notepad into his back pocket.

Ignoring him, Jean asks Krista, “Does she know you’re safe?”

Krista hesitates for a moment and then shrugs. “She’s in the military, and I can’t really contact her right now. She doesn’t even know I was unsafe.” Just when Jean is getting fairly sure she couldn’t be more adorable, Krista laughs and conspiratorially stage whispers, “But maybe it’s better that way. She can get _pretty_ protective sometimes.”

While Jean is still laughing fondly at Krista, the heavenly gift to the Godforsaken town of Rosewood--Sasha bursts through the door shrieking, “I’M SORRY!” She flings herself across Krista’s torso, lying prostrate in shame.

Connie walks in behind her holding two brown paper bags. “Don’t worry, Krista,” he says gravely. “I saved the burgers. The fries were a sacrifice we were always willing to make.”

“Sasha ate them all on our way back,” says Marco, ducking his head as he comes through the door. “Sorry…”

Krista shakes her head, stroking Sasha’s long hair. “Don’t be silly! I’m just lucky to have met such kind people here. A hamburger sounds great.”

“Can I come back and talk to you again when I have more evidence?” Eren interrupts.

Marco shoots Jean an alarmed glance, like a mother who caught their child stealing some other kid’s candy, in response to which Jean drags his hands down his face in frustration.

“Of course. Please do,” Krista says instantly. “I’d love to get to know you better.”

Eren goes still, probably itchy in the face of any friendship other than Mikasa or Armin, and then nods. “I _will_ get to the bottom of this, Krista.”

“Thank you, Eren,” she replies, holding out her hand toward him.

Eren and Krista hold hands for three aggressive seconds before Eren turns to leave.

And Jean almost, _almost_ lets him go without incident, but instead he thinks about what Krista said about living with no regrets. It strikes an undeniable chord. If, for example, the hospital suddenly got vaporized, he’d have a lot of unfinished business, not least of all with Eren Jaeger.

“Wait up!” he calls.

And Eren actually waits, shiftily, in the doorway.

Marco takes a breath to say something but Jean holds up a hand before he can speak.

“I’ll tell you later, Marco. I gotta go.” He waves a quick goodbye to everyone and with that, hoofs it out the door.

“What do you want,” says Eren, tensing like he’s ready for a physical altercation right here outside Krista’s hospital room.

“Relax. Can we, uh…” Jean wipes his palms on his shirt. He forgets English all at once. “T...um, talk. Outside.”

Eren gives him a long, slow once-over. It takes eternity. Then he nods.

He waits as patiently as he ever waits for anything, which is to say with a lot of quiet cursing and rude looks. As he steps through the automatic lobby doors and into the cloudy daylight, he finally says, “What’s wrong with you?”

An irrational urge to tell Eren that Jean made the ship sink passes as Jean struggles to find his voice.

“I just…” he says. The scarce three feet between them is suddenly impenetrable.

Eren stands right in his way and tries to catch Jean’s avoidant gaze. “I don’t have time for this. Spit it out, already!”

“What did you think of Krista?” Jean eventually manages, with probably the fakest casual smirk in recorded history. He can lead into this discussion. Eren will say she was sweet and inspirational, and then Jean will say, ‘I agree. And did you hear what she said about regrets? About how fast it can all end?’ and Eren--

“Creepy,” Eren says.

_“What?_ ”

Eren shrugs.

_“You’re_ creepy!” Jean shouts. “What the fuck is the matter with you? Everyone she knew died this week!”

“And she’s okay with that? She seemed _happy._ I don’t trust her.”

Jean shakes his head blankly. “Congratulations, Eren. I’m speechless. You really are a psycho.”

“Fuck _off!_ You’re such a piece of shit! Did you even hear what she _said?”_

This is not the discussion Jean wanted to have. “What, about the regrets?” he tries vaguely.

“Stop being a dick for five seconds,” Eren demands, tears gathering in the corners of his eyes.

“Guess not.”

“I know you saw her too,” Eren says, screwing his face up like a kid. His low voice is ragged and overused. “The girl in the lighthouse.”

“You’re delusional.”

Eren pins him with a violent gaze, and Jean feels like a butterfly with needles through his wings.

“What, Eren?” he asks wildly. “You want to hit me? Go ahead and try it.”

Eren doesn’t hit him, though. He just stares with watery eyes for a few silent moments before he forces a rattling laugh into his lungs and turns away. “You’re really pathetic,” he says as he leaves. “You know that, Jean?”

“Good riddance!” Jean yells after him.

Eren flips the bird as he retrieves his skateboard from the bike rack.

Classic.

That’s the guy Jean had been trying to reconcile with. Jean was going to apologize. He was going to say, ‘I’ve missed you.’ Maybe he’s the delusional one.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it!! Everyone else, happy you-can-sleep-in-tomorrow! Either way, my gift to you is this chapter that I absolutely hate. Thank you so much for managing to read it!!! :'D


	3. Cold Turkey

 

 

Thursday, Jean stops at the library to clandestinely check out a book entitled Historic Lighthouses of Maine.

“No sunglasses in the library!” shouts Librarian Shadis as he scans Jean’s card.

“That’s not a rule...” Jean says uncertainly.

“Hand ‘em over!” snaps Shadis, pissy and bald as the day he was born. “And put that hood down before I do it for you!”

Librarian Shadis is small town famous for being the meanest, most terrifying public librarian in Rosewood recollection. There’s a ‘ _Shade Shadis’_ Facebook page. He probably knows, which is why he’s so aggressively embittered all the time.

Jean pushes back his sweatshirt hood and hands over the sunglasses. Most faces in the library are turned in their direction now, and Jean’s disguise is kaput, but it’s arguably better than invoking whatever unholy retribution would come his way if he failed to comply.

“Listen,” Jean says, affecting a slight smile. “Any chance we can keep this between you and me? It can’t get out that I’ve been reading about--”

“What in God’s name are you blabbering about, Kirschtein!” Shadis yells, slamming his fist on the desk. “Take the book and scram!”

The library goes absolutely silent, so much so that Jean doesn’t have the courage to assess the damage. Best to just cut losses and flee, in Jean’s opinion, and Shadis’s hollow, soulless eyes seem to agree.

“Jean. Wait," says a female voice, says Mikasa Ackerman herself.

Mikasa, wonderful, beautiful bombshell that she is, no doubt overheard the entire exchange with Shadis. His God Powers malfunctioned and brought the perfect woman to him at an imperfect time.

She inspects him grimly. “How’s your face?”

“Hey. Um, I,” he flounders, twitching as he touches his bruised cheek automatically. “It’s--great. How are you?”

Mikasa frowns. “Fine. Why are you smiling like that?”

Jean immediately frowns too. “Like what?”

“I SAID _SCRAM!”_ Shadis bellows from the checkout desk.

Mikasa has the audacity to glare back at Shadis as Jean ushers her quickly out the door.

“So, uh, what did you want to talk about?” he asks. Devil may care, he chants in his head.

Mikasa gets straight to the point, as per usual.

“I don’t hate you,” she says, “but you should stay away from Eren from now on.”

Wait, what?

“I’ve been _trying_ to stay away from him!” Jean blurts in shock. “For years!”

Mikasa shrugs. “Try harder. Even if you don’t want to face it, your actions affect the people around you.”

“Are you _lecturing_ me? For _Eren?_ Don’t tell me you actually buy into his crap, Mikasa. He thinks an evil teen-spooking ghost sunk the cruise ship. It’s nuts.”

“I trust him,” Mikasa replies, narrowing her eyes. “If our positions were switched, Eren would trust me.”

If their positions were switched.

Jean snorts. “How can you be sure?”

“How can you be so sure he’s wrong?”

Jean rolls his eyes before he can remember who he’s talking to.

Mikasa purses her lips. “Enjoy your book,” she says, and then she artfully flips her dark hair and leaves him alone.

 

\-----

 

“Jean, please. My son. My boy.”

Jean pops his head out into the hallway where his mom sits on the floor in her pajamas. “What is it now?”

She rolls her head toward him with a smile. “Would you check the clock again for me?”

“Still seven o’clock. It hasn’t gotten any earlier. You still have to be at work in a hour.”

“No,” she moans. “I hate night shifts.”

Jean leans against his door frame. “It won’t be that bad.”

“I’m going to be up until six A.M. filing evidence so some douche pole in the FBI can get the credit,” she whines. “Don’t you talk to me about what is and isn’t bad.”

She’s been working the cruise ship case, so this peaks Jean’s interest. “The FBI?” he asks.

“The one and only.”

“They’re getting involved?”

“Among others. The Coast Guard. Some Navy guy came out the other day.”

“Among others,” Jean echoes in disbelief.

“Federal agencies I’ve never even heard of are coming out of the woodwork to piss me off, and of course, they’re all claiming jurisdiction. But until an official decision is made by Christ knows who, I’m the one stuck on the phone every hour with Nile Dawk slithering his demon contracts over the line. More like Special Agent Bile Cock, if you ask me.”

“Jesus, Ma.”

Apparently too caught up in her story to remind him not to use the Lord’s name in vain--do as I say not as I do--she continues, “Not to mention that the seedy calls from Europe have already started to trickle in. A British cruise liner on a Greek cruise sinks in American waters. Bureaucracy is the devil’s handiwork. Satan is coming for me. He’s dragging me to hell.”

All this she says with her face against the hallway sheetrock, body sagging like she wants to mold over and become permanently one with the house.

Jean sits down next to her. “Are there any suspects?”

Fortunately, he can count on his mother to fess up the facts instead of complicating the issue with ‘lighthouse ghosts’ and ‘friendship.’

“Only half the continent of Europe. There was a powerful political group on board,” she says hollowly,  exhausted just by recounting the tale. “The Reiss family. According to U.K. informants, it was the first time the whole family had gathered in years, not that there were many of them left to begin with. Their presence was supposed to be top secret.”

“So, what does that mean? Someone wanted them dead for political reasons?”

“Or moral ones. The Reiss family’s methods were far from lawful, not to mention ethical. For all we know, it was a government job...”

They fall into silence for a few moments, both Kirschteins working their brains overtime in the hall.

“But why bring the ship here to sink?” Jean says eventually. “What cruise ship can cross an ocean? Who would have those kind of resources?”

“You tell me,” Jean’s mother groans. “Whoever it is, I doubt they’ll be sleeping well after this. More than four hundred people died to end that blood line, including fifty-four children. Less than half of them even had Reiss blood.” She stares absently at the opposite wall for a moment, and Jean remembers all the reasons she keeps trying to convince him not to be a cop at once. “Point is, there’s a lot of people with their finger on the trigger. Not to mention it may have been someone totally different who carved the wings.”

It doesn’t sit well, mass assassination, harsh and sharp, sunk in his chest, but it makes a lot more sense than paranormal activity. There must have been screaming, waiting, the slow, cold carnage of the ocean swallowing up four hundred simultaneous timelines. Not just the plop of a penny at a mall fountain, like it wants to seem.

How long would it take to carve that wingspan into someone’s flesh? How long would it take to do it four hundred times?

Jean’s mom pats his knee and then looks at her watch. Up on her feet at once like the shot out of the proverbial gun, she shouts, “ _Crap!_ I’m gonna be late! You need me to pick up the food after work for your party?”

“If you’re still even awake enough to drive, sure,” Jean replies absently, but at the moment he couldn’t care less about the party. At the moment he’s got his own schedule to stick to--hospital visiting hours in particular. He’s out the door before his mom is finished dressing.

The adrenaline that comes with the new lead boils in his guts, bouncing and bubbling at the top of each step. He hitches a leg over his bike and hesitates in the driveway, eyes glazing over into a thousand yard stare over at the Jaeger residence.

On some level he knows it will be further betrayal, to talk to Krista, to follow this investigation to its logical conclusion without inviting Eren along. In the end, though, Jean would have to travel miles and miles and as many years to get to that porch. The door is too cumbersome, and not worth the substantial effort, not to mention the wrath of Mikasa Ackerman, bearing down and decapitating him with the blunt edge of a skateboard.

So he doesn’t even try.

However, it remains vitally important that Jean find out what happened. Both for Krista and Eren, and for his mom, and for himself. He’s already read the section about Rosewood Lighthouse in his library book about twelve times.

It goes like this: _The Rosewood Lighthouse functioned regularly until 1919. Now in disrepair, it is not open for public viewing._

And that’s absolutely all.

When he does solve the puzzle, he’s sure he’ll drag his sorry ass up the cedar steps to Eren’s front door to fix things, but it’s difficult to soothe the situation when Eren’s convinced of the impossible, when he gives Jean that look like Jean’s putting band-aids on a corpse.

Jean locks his eyes on the red and brown brick of old downtown Rosewood, squinting against the tail end of sunset. He resolutely faces opposite the darkening ocean.

By the time he walks into Krista’s hospital room, it’s black and blue outside, the dark outline of empty tree branches clawing the sky through the window.

Krista looks up from her book when he enters, pushing her hair back with a tired smile. Her face still lacks color, all the pigments faded as if the ocean watered her down like overstrong orange juice.

“Hi, Jean,” she says pleasantly, with her adorable little voice. “Eren isn’t with you?”

Jean tenses up. “Obviously not. Why would I bring that degenerate with me?”

Krista giggles in surprise. “I guess I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“Yeah, well, I do,” Jean says. He grins at her. “Why, desperate to be questioned by the Ghost Busters again? I can call him.”

Krista’s laughter falters at the question. “Eren…He’s not a bad person, is he?”

“Jesus, he really did freak you out.”

Krista shrugs a little bashfully.

Jean can reassure a delicate hospital patient with her leg in an enormous plaster cast.

He’s fully capable.

“Eren’s not--” He stops and clears his throat of the rust and blood and scraped-out brick grout settled for years. His breath rattles his vocal chords like the bars of a prison cell. “He’s not a _bad_ person. He’s just really… He wants, uh-- Eren--” Jean lets himself stop talking, sits in the chair next to the bed, down like cement.

Krista blinks at him.

For a long moment, they listen to the hospital’s antique heating system clang.

Jean smiles. “I think you’re asking the wrong guy, to be honest. Eren’s pretty fucking delusional, but that’s...my bad.”

“How so?” asks Krista with the smallest tilt of her head. Her subtle, cloying presence is calming enough to catalyze an overdue chemical reaction.

Jean almost fights it, but as hopeless as a bar of soap down a water slide, everything comes down the chute at once.

“We used to be friends,” he confesses.

“Really?”

“Sort of. Not like now, at least. A few years ago, we spent a night in the old lighthouse at the top of the hill as a dare. People said it was haunted. It was so stupid.” He laughs, but when he manages to look up at Krista, she’s looking back at him like this story isn’t stupid at all, like Jean’s words are important, and she really, sincerely gives a shit.

“We didn’t even last two hours before we bolted,” he goes on. “We heard some bird or something and couldn’t stick through it. I never checked to see if Eren was following, and he wasn’t. He got hurt real bad, like he maybe got caught by the fence or something. Or a wild animal. They don’t know what really happened. Eren knows, though. Thinks he knows.”

“He thinks it was a ghost,” Krista says softly.

Jean digs his fingers into his skin. “He got so scared he had a mental break. He already had enough issues to begin with.”

Krista reaches out, bending out of her bed slightly to put her cool hand on Jean’s forearm. “I’m sorry if I encouraged something I shouldn’t have. I was just telling him what I saw. I want to get to the bottom of what happened too. More than you do, I bet.”

Jean shrugs with all the charitability of a skinned rabbit, twitching red raw and hanging ass-up in the air. “His passionate, corny speeches make it all sound plausible. I know.”

“Yes, but…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jean says as the tension eases some. “But that’s part of the reason why I need to figure out what happened. I came here to ask you about the Reiss family.”

Krista quickly sits back in her bed. “What makes you think I know anything about them?”

“Statistics,” says Jean, emboldened by her reaction. “Half the passengers were Reisses. Which half were you?”

Krista hesitates, then sighs, seven tonnes heavy, and when she lifts her head, she’s a different person.

“I don’t think you’ll like what you find if you start digging in Reiss business, Jean. Not you or Eren. But if you want to find out what happened, to get justice, for _me,_ I can give you an address that I think will help.”

 

\------

 

That night, Jean has the same dream he’s been having since he was fifteen years old.

First he’s a kid, which he knows because he’s absolutely at the mercy of the world, splashing in the shallows with his khaki shorts on. He watches the tall, grey wall of water barreling at him for a whole minute, little feet down in the sucking sand. He can hear the neighbor boy snickering, “I told you so,” close to his ear.

The sea takes him, turns him completely head to toe inside out, every inch burning for oxygen, and by the time he comes back to the surface, he’s seventeen again.

He sits on the railing around the top of the lighthouse, laughing as little brown and yellow birds crash into the glass of the storm panes, dozens at a time. They get bloody and pile up, flapping impotently against the concrete of the catwalk.

When he turns to see Eren’s reaction, Eren is bleeding too, can hardly see him through all of it.

Jean reaches out to wipe it away, pushing back the strings of excess flesh so he can see Eren’s expression, his pink swirled teeth smiling manically in the sunlight, his eyes that mean murder. He leans forward and presses his hair, wet and clotting with blood against Jean’s cheek.

“Fly,” he whispers.

His dark bedroom is sideways when Jean opens his eyes.

The burnt brown red of Eren’s neck fades into the glow of his alarm clock.

**3:36** , it reads.

Still half in the dream, Jean drags himself out from under his sweaty blankets and hurries to the yellow light of the bathroom to vomit. He brushes his teeth with eyes only open to a squint.

Then, shivering, he pulls on a hoodie, followed by his socks and sneakers, and without even meaning to, walks out the front door, across the driveway, back over the damp lawn.

Just like old times, like a crazy teenage hormone zombie, he climbs the ladder to the treehouse and then shimmies onto the roof of the gable under Eren’s open window. The scritch scratch of his shoes on the shingles wakes Eren up before Jean even has the chance to climb in.

Eren rubs his eyes like _he’s_ the one in the dream. “What the hell, Jean...” he groans, blinking rapidly.

“Can--” Jean swallows hard, voice rough with sleep and stomach acid. “Can I come in?”

Eren blinks three more times before he sits all the way up and says, “Yeah, okay.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks so much for reading!!!!!!!! i just had a vivid flashback to those old fanfic author's notes where you talk to the characters in script format, and i think if jean and eren would have anything to say about this fic, it would be, "this story doesn't matter. give up."
> 
> also updating at [sandwichtree](http://sandwichtree.tumblr.com/) on tumblr and in the tumblr tag 'the lighthouse fic'


End file.
